Monday, December 19, 2005

I'll never bake again

Cranberry & Pisatchio Biscotti before they get dunked in white chocolate

Every year I dream about giving out the perfect little package of holiday cookies to my coworkers and friends. Every year I pick three recipes, buy some cute bag to put them all in and anticipate spending some quality time in the kitchen. Every year, about three hours into the creaming of the butter, the rolling of the dough, the chopping up the chocolate and the trying-to-remove-the-cookies-from-the-sheet-without-breaking-any, I start to get a bit irritated. Five hours into the washing-the-mixer-for-the-sixth-time-in-order-to-start-yet-another-batch and divvying up the cookies into even packages, I start to get downright pissed. By 11:00 PM when I am still tying little ribbons to enclose each set of cookies, I just want to kill myself. OK, maybe suicide isn't in order but you get the idea. "WHY OH WHY do I even bother?" There is no "Baker Of The Month" award at work. I doubt I'll get promoted thanks to the time and effort put into creating little packets of cookies.I guess, at the end of the day, no matter how frustrated and tired I am after the baking frenzy, I soon forget the bad feelings and just look forward to baking like a madwoman again 12 months later. It's the holidays- when else do you have an excuse to share so much baking with so many people? The reward of seeing a cubicled coworker receiving homemade presents (from their fellow cubicled coworker) makes all the work totally worth it.The final package: Brown Butter Crisps, Chocolate Sparkle Cookies, Pisatchio/Cranberry Biscotti w/ White Chocolate

Just remind me that I was swearing at the bag of sugar and sticks of butter as if they were people before I start my baking whirlwind next year.